


Reaper

by everywintersbreath



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Child Death, Death, Grim Reapers, M/M, Not really but also kind of really, a bit cheesy, love me some cheddar, would not recommend reading if you have any problems or trauma relating to death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-16 05:01:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16078958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everywintersbreath/pseuds/everywintersbreath
Summary: Every time Junhui dies, Wonwoo is there to bring him back again.





	Reaper

**Author's Note:**

> hi! read the tags pls this could be a triggering subject

The first time that Junhui dies, he’s barely even alive.

No breaths escape his tiny lips, delicate eyelashes fluttering for several moments before he lies still. Around him, the nurses are clamoring, his mother’s wailing echoing off of the walls of the room as they check for his heartbeat, check for any means of resuscitating him.

In the doorway, Wonwoo watches. 

He’s only a child. This is the first mission he’s ever been given and he’s already going to mess it up. With halting breaths of determination, Wonwoo walks forward, moving through the warm bodies of the nurses and wrapping his greying hands around the baby’s neck. In seconds, the baby’s chest is rising and falling again, the nurses exclaiming in shock and terror. 

The baby is looking up at him, eyes wide as Wonwoo’s hands leave his body. He doesn’t cry, instead giving Wonwoo a gurgling smile that makes Wonwoo want to run and hide. One of the nurses sticks her arm through him to start cleaning the baby and that’s when Wonwoo decides he needs to go. He takes off running, heels slipping on the hospital floor as he passes through the door of the room. The baby starts wailing as soon as he disappears, which makes Wonwoo’s heart pound even faster.

What has he done? 

Is he, Jeon Wonwoo, the son of the god of death, so disturbed by the death of a child that he has to prevent it? All he’s done is doom the kid to an eternity of seeing specters in the corner of their eyes, of tasting death in the air when they breathe. Wonwoo’s touch, after all, is not one that can be easily forgotten. 

He skids to a halt at the end of the hospital hallway, sliding right through a stretcher and pausing to catch his breath. He’ll have to hide this from his father, of course. There’s no way that his father can know about this. 

Wait, Wonwoo thinks. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is the way he can get back at his father. If he keeps the boy a secret, lets him grow up, then he’ll win. His father won’t be able to claim another victim. Surely his father won’t notice the absence of just one soul.

A nervous sort of excitement bubbles in Wonwoo’s chest. He has to try.

 

-

 

The second time Junhui dies, he’s eight years old. 

Wonwoo’s laying in the nearby bushes, reading a book absently while Junhui plays in the field, throwing his ball around. He likes spending time near Junhui, even if that’s a bit creepy. It’s not like Wonwoo has any friends his age in the underworld, seeing as most of the spirits are creepy old croons who haggle him when he passes. Just having another kid within his vicinity makes him feel less lonely. 

It’s raining, which Wonwoo hadn’t paid any mind to before now. He doesn’t mind the rain, especially when it doesn’t affect him in this state. If he wanted, he could make his body solid and feel the droplets, but there’s no real point.

The storm doesn’t seem to bother little Junhui either, at least not until the bolt of lightning comes down from the sky with a deafening rumble. 

Wonwoo’s up immediately, running to Junhui’s side. How unlucky can one possibly be, he wonders, to have a bolt of lightning strike them completely out of the blue?

He collapses at the boy’s side, looking down on Junhui’s twitching body. He’s going into cardiac arrest, which will likely kill him within minutes seeing as his mother is nowhere to be seen and there’s no way help can get here fast enough. Wonwoo sighs, rolling up his sleeves. He’s done it once, which means he can do it again.

One hand on Junhui’s chest is enough, the power coursing into the boy’s body and making him choke back awake, big doe eyes staring at Wonwoo with wonder. Wonwoo’s magic should get rid of the scarring too, should make it so he only feels a tiny bit of pain, almost as if he’s only tripped and fallen. “W-Who are you?” Junhui asks, voice soft. He’s always been a curious child. Wonwoo should have expected this. “No one important.”

He keeps his voice gentle, soothingly running a hand through Junhui’s wet locks of hair. Junhui squints at him, almost distressed. “You seem familiar. Do we know each other?”

“We met once,” Wonwoo says, for the sake of the boy’s sanity. “I don’t expect you to remember.”

“Really?” Junhui asks with excitement, beaming. “Wanna be friends?”

Wonwoo blinks in surprise, staring at him. Friends? What an unexpected offer. Wonwoo’s never had a friend before. He hadn’t expected Junhui to be so trusting, to immediately offer Wonwoo the one thing he wants more than anything.

“S-Sure,” Wonwoo chokes out, unsure if it’s the right response at all. What has he gotten into now?

 

-

 

The third time Junhui dies, it’s in an even more ridiculous way.

Wonwoo spends a lot of time with him now, enough to warrant some suspicion from his father if his father actually cared about him or his activities. Junhui had figured out that he wasn’t human pretty quickly after they first agreed to be friends, pinky promising not to tell anyone about Wonwoo when he realized none of the people around him could even see the boy. 

He lets Wonwoo walk beside him silently wherever he goes, long since used to the sight of Wonwoo passing through solid objects. Wonwoo appreciates it, using the opportunity to non-surreptitiously scare off the other supernatural entities that try to hover around Junhui after they figure out that he can see them. When Junhui asks, he explains that it’s partially his fault that Junhui even has to deal with them and that they’re not very nice people. Junhui, as usual, trusts him right away.

Still, even with Wonwoo exercising all of the diligence in the world into keeping Junhui safe, there are bound to be accidents that he can’t prevent. He gives the smaller boy a jade pendant for his fourteenth birthday, urging Junhui that it’ll allow them to stay friends forever. In reality, it’s Wonwoo’s charm, a way for him to monitor the boy’s condition from afar. Junhui wears it with pride.

Coincidentally, mere days later it ends up being critically useful.

Wonwoo feels the pulse when he’s doing a cleanup job for his father, immediately teleporting. Junhui’s in danger. He arrives too late, the boy’s body crushed underneath a large bale of hay that had rolled off of a farm cart. Wonwoo almost sighs at the scene, walking over to drag him out and work his magic before the owner of the cart can return and realize what’s happened. 

Junhui’s eyes flutter open slowly, as pretty as gemstones within his shining face. “What happened?” He asks. “The hay from that cart knocked you over and you hit your head,” Wonwoo partially lies, stroking Junhui’s forehead. Junhui laughs nervously, glancing over. “Silly me.”

There’s something strange about his voice, a weird kind of suggestion that makes Wonwoo think he’s suspecting something that he shouldn’t be. Wonwoo gulps. He can’t deal with this today.

 

-

 

The third, fourth, and fifth time that Junhui dies, the circumstances are much more ordinary, albeit still irritatingly unlucky.

When he’s eighteen, Junhui briefly dies of pneumonia, staring up at Wonwoo with eagle eyes when he’s resurrected. 

When he’s twenty-three, Junhui is shot in the chest during a bank robbery. When he wakes up, his eyes trace the lines of Wonwoo’s cheeks, his brow furrowing.

When he’s thirty, Junhui dies in a car accident. This time, he’s not wearing his pendant. 

Wonwoo doesn’t find out about it until nearly an hour later, when he visits the human world to search for Junhui, spots the necklace on Junhui’s dresser. His hands tremble, and then he gets frantic.

Wonwoo looks everywhere, street to street, from Junhui’s business to the homes of his friends. He even checks the hospital, checks the park where Junhui likes to jog, checks the pet store. He’s not expecting to find Junhui’s body in his car by the bridge, any traces of life long gone. Wonwoo can’t do anything with this. Junhui’s soul has left, and there’s no bringing it back.

He chokes out a weird noise, teleporting back to the underworld and stumbling through the lines of newly dead souls, pushing and shoving the material figures, who grumble and moan at his touch. “JUNHUI!” He screams, receiving nothing in response.

He pushes forward, stumbling through lost soul after lost soul, screaming the name over and over until he finally gets a response, albeit a tiny one. It’s Junhui’s voice, small and alone, the man’s soul standing by the edge of the river of death, wavering. Wonwoo comes to halt, breathing several sighs of relief and throwing his arms around Junhui’s body. “Why?” He asks softly. “Why weren’t you wearing the pendant?”

“I… I don’t know,” Junhui says weakly. “I was thinking about you all morning and making myself really upset. I just took it off to go for a drive and clear my head, and then… I died?”

“Yeah,” Wonwoo breathes. “You’re dead.”

Junhui looks around, his eyes wide. He seems to take in everything in a new light. “It was you who saved me all those times, right?” He asks finally, having to wait several seconds to get a tentative nod of response from Wonwoo. “Why?” Junhui asks. “You’re some sort of grim reaper, right? Why not just let me die so that I could be with you here?”

“This world is awful,” Wonwoo replies. “I didn’t want you to have to see this place. I wanted you to be happy for as long as possible.”

Junhui turns to him, fully distressed this time. “I’m happy as long as I’m with you. Don’t blame yourself for my actions.”

“I love you, Junhui,” Wonwoo manages to choke out. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Stop,” Junhui whispers fondly, wrapping his arms around Wonwoo and speaking into his neck. “Stop, okay? You bought me so much more time on Earth than I was ever intended to have. I’m grateful, but everyone has to die eventually. I have no regrets so long as you stay by my side.”

Wonwoo looks at him, stunned, his eyes blinking up and down. Junhui smiles. “Hey, at least you don’t have to travel between worlds to see me now, right? And I love you too, so stop making that face, you big dummy.”

“Ugh,” Wonwoo says, wiping at his eyes. Junhui, his first victim, first friend, first love, and first failure. How poetic. “Thanks,” he sniffles. “Just, it’s gonna take a while for me to stop feeling like shit.”

“That’s okay!” Junhui replies. “Take as long as you need. I’ll be here, just like you always have been for me.”

**Author's Note:**

> i was going to make this super angsty but last minute decided i couldnt
> 
> thanks for reading <3
> 
> feedback appreciated


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